An initial staff study has shown Main Street can accommodate two lanes of traffic in each direction between Yosemite Avenue and Alameda Street.

It can be done without any need to widen the corridor. To make it work all remaining landscape bulbs in the 100 block will be removed and parking will be eliminated from Yosemite Avenue to Alameda Street.

Public Works Director Mark Houghton said the next steps — design and then reconfiguration of the lanes — depends on staffing and funding. The city has been struggling with trying to fill an engineering position dedicated to various traffic issues while a half dozen major road projects are moving forward while juggling ongoing street and traffic issues.

The last council — led by Councilman Gary Singh — put the brakes on a previously approved plan to reconfigure only the 100 block of North Main Street with two southbound lanes and one northbound lane as opposed to the current one lane in each direction plus a median and on-street parking after the rest of the unpopular landscaping bulbs are removed.

After being informed of the cost and realizing that the capacity not only in the 100 block but also the rest of the current two lane corridor would likely need to be reconfigured to handle four lanes in a relatively few years due to ongoing growth, Singh secured the consensus of his fellow council members not to do what he called at the time “spending good money” and then having to go back a few years later and change things again.

The two-lane section through downtown has become a bottleneck on Main Street that is the heaviest traveled north-south corridor in Manteca.

Delaying the 100 block reconfiguration and coupling it with altering the 200 and 300 blocks is an example of what council members have been clamoring for — doing things right the first time.

Originally reconfiguring and repaving the 100 block of North Main Street was going to take place concurrently with the $3.1 million project to upgrade Main Street from Yosemite Avenue to Atherton Drive that a contract has been awarded to do. Work will take place on that segment this summer.

Details about that project along with the $3 million upgrade on Yosemite Avenue from Main Street to Cottage Avenue plus their schedules will be shared during a community meeting on Tuesday, April 30, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Manteca Transit Center, 220 Moffat Blvd.

To contact Dennis Wyatt, email dwyatt@mantecabulletin.com